After a year of woe, hardware maker Dell
saw quarterly earnings jumped 46 percent on stronger sales of business
products and services, improved average selling prices and lower component
costs.
The company earned $733 million in the
last three months, compared with $502 million a year ago. Sales rose four
percent to $14.8 billion.
The results were better than Wall Street
expected.
Dell also acknowledged a
"higher-than-normal" backlog of orders due to unexpectedly high demand for new
Inspiron and XPS colour notebooks, as well as parts shortages for certain
flat-panel displays.
More here.